How a Christmas Gift Became His Retirement Dream Job

The Retirement Dream That Turned Into a Life Experience

How an unexpected Christmas gift, a lifelong passion for brewing, and a friendship with Upper Depot's founder turned retirement into the best job Pete Goldman ever had.

If you've spent time at Upper Depot Brewing, chances are you've met Pete Goldman.

You may have seen him working behind the scenes on brew day, talking with customers at the bar, cleaning tanks, helping Aaron prepare the next batch of beer, or happily taking visitors on an impromptu tour of the brewery. What many people don't know is that Pete's journey to becoming Upper Depot's Assistant Brewer began more than 30 years ago with a completely unexpected Christmas gift.

"It was a Christmas present that wound up growing into a life experience,"  - Pete Goldman

For Pete, brewing was never part of the plan. Today, it's his retirement dream.

A Christmas Gift That Changed Everything

Born and raised in the Town of Hillsdale and Town of Greenport, Pete has spent most of his life building things with his hands.

Over the years he worked as a painter and paperhanger, built homes, worked in construction, and later served as a code enforcement officer for the City of Hudson. Throughout his career he enjoyed a good beer, but brewing one himself had never crossed his mind.

Then one Christmas morning, everything changed.

Pete's daughters—around 14 and 10 years old at the time—surprised him with a simple homebrewing kit.

"It was a complete surprise," Pete remembers. "My kids knew I drank beer, but I had never brewed beer or wine or anything."

The kit was basic. Instead of brewing from grain, it relied on malt extract in a can, boiled in a kettle with a simple fermenter hanging nearby.

Pete figured he'd give it a try.

When that first batch was finished, he couldn't believe it.

"The beer tasted really pretty good," he says.

That first batch ignited something that would become a lifelong passion.

Within months, Pete had upgraded from beginner kits to brewing with malt extract. Before long he purchased his first gravity-fed brewing system—a "brew tree"—where heated water flowed through multiple levels by gravity.

What began as a hobby slowly grew into something much bigger.

Over the next two decades Pete continually upgraded his equipment, replacing homemade systems with commercial-quality stainless-steel brewing equipment, professional fermenters, glycol cooling, and a brewery setup that rivaled many small commercial operations.

What started as one Christmas gift had quietly become a serious craft.

A Friendship Built Around Beer

About fifteen years ago, Pete met a young brewer named Aaron.

Aaron was brewing at another local brewery where Pete happened to be one of the founding members. Although they came from different backgrounds, they immediately recognized something in one another.

"We clicked right from day one," Pete says. "We both have the same passion for making great beer."

Their friendship grew over years of brewing conversations and shared ideas.

Pete brought decades of practical brewing experience gained through thousands of homebrew batches.

Aaron brought formal brewing education.

Rather than competing, the two learned from one another.

"I learn every day from him," Pete says. "I'm sure he'd tell you he learns every day from me. Mine comes from experience. His comes from school."

Pete also admired Aaron's ability to think through recipes and adapt when ingredients weren't exactly what they expected.

"He's a pretty well-rounded guy," Pete says. "His thought process on the styles we're brewing is spot on. Sometimes we have to adjust grain or ingredients based on what's available, and he figures it out. We always wind up with a great product."

Eventually, Aaron invited Pete to join him at Upper Depot Brewing.

For Pete, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

What had started as a hobby more than thirty years earlier had become exactly what he calls today...

His retirement dream job.

If You Sit, You Get Rusty

Many people imagine retirement as slowing down.

Pete laughs at that idea.

"If you sit, you get rusty." - Pete Goldman

It's become something of a personal philosophy.

"I've never been a guy to sit around," he says. "I've always been an overachiever. I've got to go. I don't have time to sit."

That energy is evident every day inside Upper Depot.

Pete helps prepare the brewery for brew days, cleans and sanitizes equipment, assists with brewing operations, monitors fermentation, solves problems as they arise, and helps make sure every beer leaving the brewery reflects the standards he and Aaron expect.

Even after decades of brewing, every day still feels different.

"When I walk in every morning," Pete says, "I'm wondering what kind of surprise I'm walking into today."

Fortunately, he says with another laugh, those surprises have become much less frequent as the brewery has matured.

Good Beer Starts With the Basics

Ask Pete what makes great beer and his answer comes immediately.

"Good ingredients and cleanliness."

No secret recipes.

No shortcuts.

"When you start with good products and your equipment is clean, it's easy from there," he explains. "If you try to cheap out or cut corners, it's never going to work."

It's a philosophy that guides nearly everything happening inside the brewery.

Pete has also watched Upper Depot grow tremendously during the past several years.

"Our consistency, productivity and efficiency have all improved," he says. "We sell through beer much faster now. A few years ago we'd sometimes dump beer just so we could put fresh beer on. Today we're consistently brewing and running out because people are drinking it."

The Beer That Almost Didn't Make It

One of Pete's favorite memories nearly became one of his biggest frustrations.

Pete, Aaron and Alex had entered one of their beers—Platform 82—into competition.

There was just one problem.

The beer was only twelve days old.

It still contained a tremendous amount of suspended yeast and proved incredibly difficult to bottle for judging.

"It took us probably two hours just to bottle four beers," Pete recalls.

After all that work, none of them expected much.

Then the results arrived.

Platform 82 had earned a silver medal.

The stressful bottling session suddenly became one of Pete's favorite brewery memories.

Sometimes the Best Beer Is an Accident

Like every brewer, Pete has made mistakes.

One, however, turned into an unexpected success.

During one brew, too much water accidentally entered the boil kettle.

Instead of producing the planned 5.5% beer, the finished beer measured only about 3.2%.

"It was the greatest tasting beer we had," Pete laughs.

Customers loved it.

The beer sold remarkably well.

They never intentionally brewed it again—but it's still one of Pete's favorite stories.

Brewing for His Community

Pete's favorite beer may have changed over the years.

Early in his brewing journey, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale became the beer that opened his eyes to what craft beer could be.

Today his tastes have broadened.

He enjoys trying beers from breweries everywhere, but admits he's grown especially fond of drinking the beers brewed at Upper Depot.

Brewing in Hudson also carries special meaning.

"My friends are here," Pete says. "They get a kick out of having a beer named after me."

That beer—Pete's Pilsner—has become one of Upper Depot's favorites.

For Pete, however, the greatest reward isn't seeing his name on a can.

It's introducing people to the brewing process itself.

He loves taking guests behind the scenes, explaining how beer is made, and watching their reactions when they taste beer drawn directly from a fermenter.

"People get a smile on their face you can't imagine," he says.

Moments like that remind him why he still enjoys coming to work every day.

A Life Experience

More than thirty years ago, two young daughters gave their father a Christmas gift they hoped he might enjoy.

None of them could have imagined where that simple brewing kit would eventually lead.

Today Pete spends his retirement making award-winning beer, working alongside a close friend, sharing his knowledge with customers, and helping build one of the Hudson Valley's most respected breweries.

Not many people get to spend retirement doing exactly what they love.

And not many people can honestly say that a Christmas present became a life experience.

The next time you visit Upper Depot Brewing, say hello to Pete.

If you're lucky, he just might invite you behind the scenes, pull a sample straight from one of the tanks, and share a story or two about the journey that all started with one unexpected Christmas morning.